12 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



They have thought that with those vast forest areas it did not matter what 

 we did with them ; that we had such wealth that we could afford to be spend- 

 thrifts. I trust that the conscience of the people has been awakened 

 largely through the efforts of the Dominion Forestry Association and of 

 men who have been studying these questions. I trust that, as a result of 

 these agitations, the people of Canada to-day are determined that they will 

 no longer be spendthrift and wasteful in this regard. (Hear, hear). I 

 think, too, that the figures of 350,000,000 acres of forest areas are a little 

 deceptive. The lumbermen of the older Provinces of Canada, perhaps of 

 British Columbia too, look upon timber limits with the idea in their minds 

 of the vast wealth and richness of the limits which they bought, or the 

 right to cut on which they bought, from the Crown Lands Department; 

 and when they think of 350,000,000 acres of forest land they are tempted 

 to measure the capacity of those millions of acres by the capacity of the 

 choice bits of the timber limits which they have already, with far-seeing 

 business capacity, acquired the right to cut. (Hear, hear). But we ought 

 to remember that a vast proportion of the 350,000,000 acres of forest land 

 lies away to the far north, almost out of reach, at the present day, of the 

 commercial world, and that the timber on that land is far different in 

 quality and far less valuable in its character than that of the old-time timber 

 limits in the Ottawa Valley and on the shore hills of British Columbia and 

 in the nearer parts of this great Province of Ontario and the Province of 

 Quebec. So far I have spoken only of the lumber wealth, if I may call 

 it so, or timber lands, and the question of the production of commercial 

 timber from our forests. But there is another, and, speaking as a farmer, 

 what I consider a more important side to forestry and the conservation of 

 our forest areas. The first idea, perhaps almost the only idea, of the lumber- 

 man, is how much he can get out of a forest area in the way of timber and 

 of lumber: The forests, however, serve a far different and far more useful 

 purpose in retaining the moisture of the land, and in conserving the water 

 supply in our rivers and streams; first of all in the small streams watering 

 the hill parts of our country, and later on, as this same water percolates 

 down to the larger rivers, providing the great water powers of our indus- 

 trial centres, and furnishing the medium for transportation and navigation 

 which is perhaps the greatest glory of Canada our magnificent river 

 transportation system. (Applause). We have been tempted to boast that 

 in Canada we have the greatest water system in the world. I believe that 

 this is true. I believe that we have in the St. Lawrence basin the greatest 

 water system for transportation and navigation that there is in the world 

 the great lakes and the great river; but already the great lakes vary very 

 much in the depth of water available for transportation work. Already the 

 harbors in those great lakes have had to be deepened by artificial means. 

 Already the great channel of the St. Lawrence has had to be deepened ovei 

 and over again, and the transportation interests of Canada are in constant 

 danger lest the depth of that channel may be reduced. The important 

 shipping interests of this country fear that the great facility we enjoy in 



